The Pathocracy Unmasked

Exposed as Criminals and Psychopaths, the Coercive Elite are Desperate to Stop the Flow of Honest Information

"When Bush cancelled his trip to avoid prosecution, the human rights groups who prepared the complaints made it public and announced that the Bush Torture Indictment would be waiting wherever he travels next."

"It was three months into Barack Obama's presidency, and the administration -- under pressure to do something about alleged abuses in Bush-era interrogation policies -- turned to a Florida senator to deliver a sensitive message to Spain:

"Don't indict former President George W. Bush's legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees . . . ."

WikiLeaks: How U.S. tried to stop Spain's torture probe, Carol Rosenberg in the Miami Herald[Note: the Spanish investigation is separate from the criminal complaint that Bush dodged by canceling this week's Geneva trip, but is "against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five other senior Bush lawyers" rather than against Mr. Bush]

The coercive elite's frantic assault on Julian Assange and on the WikiLeaks organization is explained by a single fact: WikiLeaks is not merely threatening to expose the coercive elite's characteristic pattern of behavior – WikiLeaks is actually doing so. Other sources are also stepping up the leaks and exposures of vile and criminal behavior among the coercive elite in and out of government, and with enough such exposure, people will wake up to the con – a prospect that terrifies the coercive elite. (This, of course, is the only sense in which Assange is a “terrorist”).

The elite's power, privilege, and stolen plunder are at risk because the myths and lies used to justify elite power and elite control over the masses may not survive the truth. That is the reason, and at bottom the only reason, for the bizarre and desperate attacks on Assange and on his carefully-crafted tools for encouraging and protecting whistle-blowers in government, industry, and elsewhere, and for disseminating the material leaked by those whistle-blowers.1

As others have pointed out, WikiLeaks is only doing what the New York Times, CBS News, and other news organizations have intermittently done from their inception and what they by rights should be doing: reporting the news and seeking in particular to hold government and business accountable. This is simply a free press at work, and need for such reporting is the main reason that freedom of the press was included in the very first of the ten constitutional amendments that make up the Bill of Rights.

But in line with their overall pattern of behavior, the power elite consider such reporting to be treason, at least when done by a person or group outside the elite's control. The elite own and control the major media; governments also control the media by force, whether directly or via regulatory power, licensing, and other indirect methods. So the corporate media can be counted on to provide "fair and balanced" counterpoint to whatever negative information they do report about the elite in and out of government.

(An aside: The corporate media may have slightly increased their reportage of truth and actual news of late. Ron Paul gets coverage of his campaign to audit – and ultimately to dismantle – the Federal Reserve; Julian Assange gets positive coverage in addition to coverage of the death threats and smears against him. Steve Kroft interviewed Assange on 60 Minutes recently [here's Part 2], and CBS ran the interview even though it made Assange look quite credible and sympathetic – as does his longer and commercial-free TED interview from several months ago [19 min 34 sec; highly recommended]. The media's corporate owners are between a rock and a hard place: they can keep lying directly and by omission, and become ever-more irrelevant and ignored, or they can help WikiLeaks expose what has really been going on in the world – which will prove that the public's long-growing mistrust of the media has had strong basis in fact, and will threaten elite power generally).

WikiLeaks is providing enough unfiltered, damaging information about the psychopathic elite and their psychopathic system (of corporatism, of Statism, of a small group in power feeding on the wealth generated by the masses) that the elite's damage control is being overwhelmed by truth. Government and corporate support for the cruelest and most corrupt dictators overseas – and so many other stunning evils committed by the elite – shows the true nature and agenda of those in power, both in and out of government. "Compassion" and "support for freedom and human rights" are NOT characteristic of the elite, including the upper echelon of the U.S. government, and as people come to understand this, they see coercive State power and the coercive elite generally as less and less legitimate.

In all of this, WikiLeaks is only highlighting what we already know, and have known for a long time – but as with news video of combat horrors in Vietnam shown by the less-compliant and less-complicit media of the time, WikiLeaks' steady reminder of what is really happening has woken people up, shocked them, angered them, and energized millions to do something to stop the evil. For the coercive elite, this is not good – not good at all.

"Political Ponerology then, is the nature of evil in politics--according to Lobaczewski, organizations can become infested with psychopathic personality types and, given the proper amount of time and growing conditions, psychopaths will busily fill all positions of power in the organization with psychopathological personalities. In the case of governments, what emerges is defined as a pathocracy: tyranny at the hand of psychopaths. Lobaczewski defined governance by a pathocracy as a macrosocial disease, something unhealthy and if untreated, brutally deadly. "

As for the idea that WikiLeaks is a psy-op by the elite, or by Israel, or by the CIA or other U.S. government apparatus – if true, then it is the most counter-productive psy-op imaginable, blowing back in the faces of the elite (including the coercive power structures of Israel and the United States). If WikiLeaks is a psy-op by shadowy, pro-elite forces, then it's a psy-op that the masses should support with everything they have, because the predictable and actual RESULTS of this torrent of leaked information are that millions of people are waking up and seeing the bizarre and evil system of coercive control for what it is – or at least, seeing a glimmer of that truth. In turn, this awakening has caused a growing revolt against the evil of the coercive State and against the psychopaths who run and benefit from the coercive State, and who are always and everywhere attracted to the one organization that allows them to use force against others with impunity.

Possible Failure or Betrayal are Not Arguments Against Seeking Freedom

Will a new evil replace the old evil in Tunisia, in Egypt, and elsewhere as the revolutions spread? Yes, it probably will. Evil-replacing-evil has been the usual way of things in history – and the false meme of the State as parent figure, as compassionate protector, as somehow necessary is still very strong. The elite's most subtle and powerful deception – that an all-powerful State can impose compassion and actually wants to – may in the end fool people into re-enslaving themselves willingly, in the neurotic expectation that psychopaths will somehow not (for the first time in history) gain control of the resulting power structure, either immediately or over time. Another all-too-likely possibility is an imposed military dictatorship or other blatant tyranny as the end result for one or more of the protests and revolts now underway.

But regardless of possible negative outcomes, which we cannot predict with certainty in any case, how could anyone of good will suggest that a people being oppressed, impoverished, and often tortured or raped or murdered by their own government not try to gain their freedom? Does anyone really believe that the victims of, say, the Mubarak regime should continue being victimized because trying for freedom might fail, or because the Wiki-leaked documents that ignited the public's long-smoldering resentment against Mubarak's U.S.-supported tyranny might have been clumsily crafted as a psy-op by the elite? Is anyone willing to argue that the people of Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere should stay enslaved because Assange might have ulterior motives or because some other tyrant might replace the tyrant now in power?

Let me be clear: People have the right to freedom regardless of what anyone else says or believes. If the revolution currently threatening elite power structures and obliterating the elite's false veneer of decency and legitimacy is a psy-op by the elite, then – at the risk of repeating myself – it is the most inept and foolish psy-op ever conceived. The results of Julian Assange's clever assault on Power are positive beyond anything freedom-loving people had reason to hope for until recently. If WikiLeaks is a psy-op, then cheer it on and make use of it to free more minds from the illusion that coercive Power is anything but evil and that those who wield Power against mankind are somehow kind-hearted and well-meaning instead of psychopaths and torturers and thieves and warmongers and fools.

For far too long, the vast majority of people on this Earth have been impoverished and abused by a coercive elite – by people in governments and people in corporations and in other groups that have managed to "partner" with government. Wars; genocides and other mega-murders; torture; trillion-dollar thefts; mal-regulation and other corruption and disruption of civil society; poverty and despair caused by the elite's appropriating ever-more of the wealth created by the people; and destruction of the Earth's environment are only a short list of the evils that coercive States and their partners in crime have brought to mankind. WikiLeaks has only slightly displaced the omnipresent propaganda designed to make this devastation appear as kindness or at least as inevitable and unstoppable, but the resulting small shift in world-view is emerging at just the time when large numbers of formerly-comfortable people are losing their savings, their jobs, and their homes, and when the global poor – many of whom spend 80% of their incomes on food – are seeing food prices rise dramatically. In short, the truth is emerging into view just as people are finally ready to see it, and the effects are exactly what the coercive elite has worked so hard to avoid.

Revolutions and changes in worldview are messy and do not always end well, but they don't always end badly, either, as an earlier America shows. In any case, people suffering under tyranny are not obligated to continue being victimized, and if leaked information about their corrupt and murderous "leaders" gives the masses courage to try throwing off their chains – despite poor odds for success – why would anyone but a stooge for Power complain?

Assange wants to empower people and to expose the elite for what they are; he says so in plain language (in the two linked interviews above, for example) – and his actions and the results of those actions support his claim. Every freedom-loving person has reason to cheer the ongoing, world-wide awakening that WikiLeaks is causing.

What is it, I wonder, that the anti-WikiLeaks commentators are trying for?

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Note:

1. In What WikiLeaks Revealed to the World in 2010, Glenn Greenwald makes an insightful comment on the frenzy against WikiLeaks and Assange: "It's unsurprising that political leaders would want to convince people that the true criminals are those who expose acts of high-level political corruption and criminality, rather than those who perpetrate them. Every political leader would love for that self-serving piety to take hold. But what's startling is how many citizens and, especially, 'journalists' now vehemently believe that as well." This last – the brownshirt-like willingness of many in the press and general public to side vehemently with Power and to oppose whatever reveals Power's true nature is especially chilling.

STR's Scott Lazarowitz describes this as The WikiLeaks Critics’ Pathological Obedience to the State, and reminds us that such symptoms have often had terrible consequences in the past. He also reminds us that how children are treated matters; that love and compassion, especially for the young, are a cornerstone for any society that hopes to become or to remain free. A nation of damaged (unfree and unloved) children growing into angry adults wanting revenge and desperately seeking the caring parent figures they needed in childhood is not a nation likely to embrace freedom or to support the rights of any group that can be painted as scapegoats. Love and freedom require each other and indeed are complimentary parts of a whole.

Comments

I'm still waiting for WikiLeaks to make all the e-mails available. What’s the hold-up? That only a very small percentage of them have been made available, and those few only through five of the most connected major media newspapers there are, is reason enough to wonder about the origins of this narrative and what the end game will be. The hype and hoopla about these leaks is so extravagant compared to the puny amount of information revealed that it astounds me. None of the leaks have done more than provide mild embarrassment to fringe friends of the US government. After the initial leak of the video footage of the murdering helicopter incident, nothing has come out that directly reveals anything big, much less damaging, about the US government. And there is still a deafening silence on anything about Israeli deeds.

I’m still, of course, all for WikiLeaks continuing to provide a vehicle for leakers to come to as well as releasing any and all information that it receives, but Assange is given way too much credit and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I believe in the principle of revealing truth, especially about secretive power centers, but am skeptical about the execution and method that is being used. When someone appears to be too good to be true, they usually are. Assange’s background also looks an awful lot like that of a potential intelligence asset . The Bradley Manning story is also curious: how did he get access and copy this information so easily onto his Lady GaGa CD? And now they can’t prove or figure out how he did it? Really?

I think The Daily Bell questioning this narrative, especially if you are familiar with the historical and continuing use of psychological operations by elite social manipulators is brave and path-breaking, right or wrong. I certainly don’t consider taking a long, questioning look at this emerging narrative as an example of a “pathological obedience to the state”. I always think it prudent to “be careful what you wish for” before accepting it on a silver platter.

The hold-up (according to Assange and other sources) is that WikiLeaks is A) going through the material carefully to prevent publishing material that would endanger individuals and B) to gain maximum impact from the cables -- a steady drip-drip-drip keeps the topics in the news, whereas a single dump would be news for a week and then recede into the background. Ethics and marketing sense, in other words.

I disagree that nothing big other than the helicopter incident has been released (have you not been following the news on this topic?), and you are certainly wrong about Israel not being part of the leaked material -- although that's a common canard among the anti-WL crowd. I link to one story about Israel ("WikiLeaks: Israel Plans Total War on Lebanon, Gaza") in this column and there are more out there, such as "WikiLeaks: Israel's secret hotline to the man tipped to replace Mubarak" ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8309792/WikiLeaks-Is... ).

Manning has been kept in solitary confinement for over half a year, allegedly under conditions that Amnesty International, international law, and simple decency all consider torture -- and he's not been convicted of a thing. When I say that the coercive State is a psychopathic structure and that it encourages psychopathic behavior (even among non-psychopaths; this is the corruption of power) and attracts actual psychopaths into its ranks, Manning's mistreatment is a good example of what I mean. In any case, proving he got the info isn't the problem, apparently: proving he and Assange were conspiring together is what the US is hoping to do, and that apparently didn't happen. The whole apparatus of WikiLeaks is designed to keep the identities of whistleblowers from anyone in the WL organization.

I agree that critical analysis, in and of itself, is not "pathological obedience to the State" -- and you'll note I did not mention DailyBell. But increasingly I see their commentary on this topic as disconnected from the truth.

I certainly agree that Palin, O'Reilly and that crowd are as you describe. But they appear to be pawns in a larger game that serves to give Assange more street cred. I've heard the drip-drip reasoning and the "responsible journalist" angle for only releasing such a small amount of information. So which is it: Assange is for open sources for sensitive state secrets or is he a self-appointed gatekeeper working in league with established Big Media organs? I'm familiar with the stories on Israeli plans in Gaza and their connections to Mubaraks inner circle. Do you really consider that new information much less damaging? At this rate, we may get to see half the e-mails in about 20 years. The half that don't endanger anyone, of course. As for Manning, all we know is what the CIA/Pentagon have told us. Is how he got the info to Assange on a cd that hard for them figure out? Maybe.

Assange is an unabashed statist and internationalist. You may believe he is just being super careful, but that's not very hero-like, much less the renegade he is being presented as, is it? Obviously he has done some good work undermining nationalist agendas, which is why Palin, et al see him as a traitor; but to what end? Observation of events as they unfold can be misleading as to where these events may lead, especially when seen in the context of a chaotic world with bumbling, fumbling elite and their stumbling Keystone Cop agents. I give the elite a little more credit than that as things are rarely as they seem. It certainly works in their favor to be so portrayed.

Existing national political/financial/industrial institutions are crumbling around the world. The elite have been planning for this for over a century. I'm sure when you profit from unsustainable mercantilist models, that a contingency plan is at the very least prudent. They have plans for international political/financial/industrial institutions ready to go in order to consolidate their positions when the old institutions fall. Now that the Global Warming/Carbon Credit scheme has been set back, the UN/IMF/World Bank international currency will likely be the first step. Nobody has control over future events, but some have more influence than is generally believed, much less understood. By influencing actors on both sides of a conflict, it becomes easier to manage the outcomes of these conflicts. This is what is happening in Egypt and why Democracy is a constant theme. The CIA props up Mubarak while at the same time they train the "activists" to overthrow him. They barely hide that Google is a CIA front in the process (do a little homework on this before dismissing it too as a "conspiracy theory"). That Assange could be an integral part in elite plans is not much of a stretch, though I'm not willing to rest so assured that I know the "truth" in such matters.

In short, I hope Assange will eventually not only release the large amount of information he supposedly has, but inspire more leakers to step forward in the future. That is how this method of truth telling can continue to have an impact, not drip-dripping old information. Better yet is other alternative sites popping up to provide access for leakers that won't be controlled by a self-imposed gatekeeper working with the MSM. At the very least, I'm not ready to drink the Kool-Aid and join the cult of Assange hero worshipers just because he appears to be "the enemy of my enemy". We shall see what role Assange will play in the new international political institutions that are being set up, but it is clear that "power to the people" is not on his agenda.

Manning (allegedly) did what Daniel Ellsberg did, but using today's tech which made it MUCH quicker and easier to do. WL is doing what the NY Times and others did with Ellsberg's material (the Pentagon Papers). Why this should be a problem for anyone in the freedom movement is hard to understand.

It's always possible that some of the info WL distributes will be crafted by the elite as a psy-op -- and you can say exactly the same about ANY source of news, of any type, that will ever exist. Paul's comment (below) is the perfect, and I must say obvious, response to that: "Wikileaks (and its competitors) should be taken exactly like every other source of information on the internet. Get the information, try to find other sources to verify or disprove it, and use your knowledge of human nature to judge where the truth really lies."

The biggest, most glaring flaw in the argument -- made only within the freedom movement, of course -- that WL is a psy-op, is this: Mubarak and so many other corrupt, vile, torturing dictators being affected by the current unrest were/are bought and paid-for stooges for Israel and the CIA and the oil companies and so on ALREADY. All the frantic activity on the part of Israel and the West regarding the unrest is designed to ensure that either A) the current dictators [the Saudi's, for instance] STAY in power or that any new regime that replaces a current stooge regime will be as compliant and corrupt as the regime being torn down.

The complicated "psy-op" arguments sound a lot like the complicated rationales for the Federal Reserve: obscure the truth with a thicket of complex and irrelevant BS, and maybe that truth will be overlooked. Here's the truth as I see it: a significant amount of the material from WL shows the elite to be criminals, to be psychopaths, to be corrupt, and to NOT have the best interests of the masses in mind. Everything else is beside the point.

I don't know what Assange is like as a person and I do not believe most of what I read about him, but in fact it doesn't matter. Maybe he's kinky in bed or cruel to puppies. So what. For certain, some of his views aren't the same as mine. He's human, so expecting him not to be flawed would be stupid. But I DO know this: the material he's helping bring to light is waking millions of people up to the corruption and cruelty of governments -- their own and others around the world. WL is exposing the coercive elite for what they really are, and showing governments for the psychopathic coercive SYSTEMS that THEY are, although that last will take longer to sink in for most people. If seeing the elite, and their tool of the coercive State, exposed in this way bothers you -- well, as I say in the column, then I have to wonder what you ARE hoping for. [Edit] -- That's an actual question, not an accusation. Do you not see, or appreciate, the way in which WL is getting people to re-evaluate the coercive State and the character of those drawn to Power? What would you prefer to see from WL that you aren't seeing now?

I clearly stated above what I want WikiLeaks, not just Assange to do: release all the info like was done in the Climate Gate e-mail data dump so that the world can see what's in them, not just what Assange decides to show us through the NY Times. Ellsworth had no other option but newspapers and TV, there was no internet. What raised my ire Glen was the idea that anyone who questions this Great Man has a Pathological Obediance to the State when Assange apparently does himself. He is not an anarchist at all.

These low level (not even Top Secret) e-mails between low-level bureaucrats have been oversold in the media based on potential with little substance to show for it. Why is that? Further, I could care less about his personal life. My concern is that he is seen as promoting anarchy when he has made it clear that he is not and will not. He is an authoritarian who believes in the state system, but wants regime change around the world with an eye towards creating more integrated state systems, i.e. world government. Perhaps the following exchange in an excellent interview with David Frost can make this clear to you:
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Frost: Do you think of yourself- when you see references to yourself as anarchic, or an anarchist, is that an accurate description of what you are?

Assange: No, it’s not at all an accurate description.

Frost: Why not?

Assange: That’s not what we do. We’re an organization that goes about and has a long record all over the world of exposing abuses, by exposing concrete documentation, proof of bad behavior. That’s not anarchy. That’s what people do when they’re civil, is that they engage in organized activity that promotes justice.

Frost: So therefore it’s — in that sense you’re not anarchic because you’re actually, you’re in favor of authority if it’s doing the right thing.

Assange: Correct. Correct.

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So authorities, like the state, are just fine as long as Mr. Assange likes what they are doing. This, again, turns the perception of the root problem (tyranny limiting liberty) into one of personnel, and away from the realization that it is the inherently corrupt authoritarian state system. This does not promote liberty. In the long run we will end up with a more powerful authoritarian state if the current system is purged and tweaked, but not eliminated. I can appreciate that he is undermining the credibility of the state, mostly its agents, while he seeks justice by revealing truths about the misdeeds of pawns. I just wouldn't get to excited about him leading or even inciting a cultural revolution against the state. He may even end up being one of its most popular promoters after some highly publicized "reforms" that he can take credit for, either overtly or covertly.

Basically I support what he is doing, even if too limited, but am skeptical where he is going and what good will come of it. We shall see.

Bingo. This fact was clear immediately to anyone who bothered to investigate the website of WikiLeaks, where its principals advocated for the UN's doctrines of servility and nanny statism.

On the whole, Assange is bad news, and I think that this WikiLeaks business is an unfortunate distraction. The knavery through which governments are established is understood well enough. For example, it's been almost 150 yrs since Spooner targeted the Federalists with withering criticism of their fraud. Further, no adult interested in living in a peaceful world can for long neglect the glaring fact that it's the elites among the statists who are not only responsible for most crime but also who are prepared already for the next great orgies of violence and busy looking for excuses to begin those orgies.

So what good long-term purpose is served by WikiLeaks? None, I suspect, but it does help cockroaches like Assange to polish their reputations among the goo-goos who are eager for a caring government of the type that Assange and his allies would just love to establish. In fact, WikiLeak's political goals require coercion and violence just to get to the goal, and more still to maintain their unified global community. It would be better if they were stopped, and if that happens to be by the Americans or some tools of theirs, then so be it.

>>>"They barely hide that Google is a CIA front in the process."

That was nearly a howler. Fortunately, the skeptic does not have to disprove the theory. Rather, it is the conspiracy theorist who must do all the work himself. That stated, maybe you should get to know some people at, for example, EMC (Network Storage, Data Recovery, and Information Management). Where Google goes, EMC is sure to want to follow. Maybe somebody there knows something about your conspiracy given that the CIA, NSA, whatever, would need to become familiar with their technology or whoever it is that has Google's business.

Has anyone noticed the irony in this psy-op argument? "Assange is one of us, one of the elite." That is, they can only smear him by claiming he is another one of those evil bastards in the elite, or a tool of them. That is a smear on themselves, if you think about it. I'm finding this highly amusing, since it reveals the level of desperation they feel. It's either that, or kill Assange, it seems. Not many palatable choices left to them, heh.

Excellent article, Glen. I don't buy the Daily Bell argument. We have to assume that the ruling class has placed provocateurs in all sorts of places, and it wouldn't be much of a stretch to think that Daily Bell has one. We have kicked one or two out of the Free State Wyoming group (freestatewyoming.org), for example. And if it is not that, it's that some people just have to believe that there are conspiracies within conspiracies within conspiracies, and aren't satisfied if the world turns out to be simpler. Anyway I think some "conspiracy theorists" are actually provocateurs too, seeking to discredit the notion of conspiracy by drawing up wilder and more silly false conspiracies.

Wikileaks (and its competitors) should be taken exactly like every other source of information on the internet. Get the information, try to find other sources to verify or disprove it, and use your knowledge of human nature to judge where the truth really lies. The problem with the psy-op theory is that it goes against human nature. It asks us to believe the elite would do things it doesn't make sense for them to do.

Thanks, Paul. Good commentary, and an interesting tidbit about the provocateurs. I see what appear to be (although one never knows) provocateurs and propagandists working for Power on the web all the time; they stand out as if framed in neon, whether they are actual paid agents or just warped minds. The Pentagon "lost" $2.3 trillion in the years leading up to 9/11 -- Rumsfeld gave a press conference on this the day before the planes were hijacked (great timing, huh?); I linked to his CBS interview on the subject in my 9/11 column in 2007 -- and it is certain that the Pentagram, and a hundred other agencies and power-centers in the government, have massive off-the-books budgets to do exactly this sort of thing -- infiltrate the enemy (meaning the citizenry), keep tabs on things, slander the opposition, and move the conversation on relevant topics in the direction they'd like it to go.

"I don't know about you, but this concerns me greatly. It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They are talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP is not at fault? Or 20 people saying it? For the weak minded, the number can make all the difference.

"And another thing, this is just one little company of assholes. I can't believe there aren't others doing this already. From oil companies, political campaigns, PR firms, you name it. Public opinion means big bucks. And let's face it, what these guys are talking about is easy."

Knowledge is power. Information provides knowledge. Whomever controls the information has the power. That is really what this is about.

What baffles me is that anyone using this basic example of transitive logic is immediately dubbed a conspiracy theorist with a tin foil hat. People are convinced that they need government like they need water, air and food. The "power" elite have lost control of that "knowledge" because they inadvertently lost control of their "information" and now they are frantically, like proverbial decapitated chickens, trying to regain that control (i.e. that power) and it is not working.

Are there really secret groups or clubs plotting to gain complete control of the civilized world in order to maintain some kind of Draconian order? I won't go out on a limb to suggest a made for Hollywood plot about the Roman Catholic Church and the Illuminati (with apologies to Dan Brown), but if you have ever been in a situation where some person was in a position to say with some sort of authority, "do you know who I am?" and you tucked your tail and ran, then you are more lost than a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist.

(This is a reply to jd-in-georgia, but it got detached from his comment when I edited this to add the Greenwald link below). Yes, knowledge is power -- although there are other kinds of power, which knowledge cannot always overcome, unfortunately. But you are absolutely right that this is about the power of information, and in particular about allowing more of the truth out into the world. As to conspiracies: a coercive elite -- not a single club or anything, but certainly a group using the meme of "government" as a tool, directly and indirectly -- ALREADY runs the world; WL is simply making it harder to hide the fact that this meme is a lie, and that by sanctioning organized coercion, the system behaves psychopathically and attracts psychopaths (and others with little empathy) into power.

The nature of the coercive state leads governments around the world to do things their citizens strongly oppose, whether it's trillion-dollar giveaways to the banks (90% of Americans oppose them, if emails to congress are any indication), aggressive foreign wars, or blatant, shocking, and disgusting (not to mention counter-productive) torture of people who are sometimes just shepards who were sold to the US by locals who wanted the reward money, just to name three. When you start looking, nearly everything the government does is opposed to the people's interests. Even if it's something people want done (like safety nets and social security), the government turns it into a Ponzi scheme, wastes whatever isn't stolen, and the end result is what we see all around us: an epic disaster, even in something that might well have worked if handled honestly. Much of this is outright illegal, even under our own laws, so if the folks responsible ever get HELD responsible, they go to prison. They have every reason to fight something like WL -- and since a conspiracy is just two or more people working together to do something, it is a near-impossibility that there is no conspiracy against Assange and WL. In any case the conspiracy is out in the open, with members of congress, shills in the media, Sara Palin, talk radio hosts, television commentators, and others openly calling for everything up to and including assassination to stop WL from darkening the world with (shudder) the truth. It's a national security issue! See also http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns/i... -- today's column by Glenn Greenwald, "The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters."

The pathocracy and its "6-percenters" have managed for generations to define the limits of acceptable discussion and barricade the critical pivots of opinion in spite of their deep minority. The power of the internet resides in the ability of non-psychopathological people to transmit information without censorship, and we have begun to see the effects all around us.

Funny that the elites have no problem invading our privacy but take great offense at having their secrets brought to light. As I read somewhere: Hey G-man, as you've been telling us all these years, if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

Is this not the old recipe of; problem + reaction = solution? Problem, Truth is escaping to the drooling masses.
Reaction, Psychos must impose their will(pass a 'law'). Solution= Internet killswitch.

I admit i have not been following the WL like i would if i thought it legit. Why is george Soros &c supporting it?
Plus it wouldn't have been 30seconds before someone was standing over Priviate Bradley's workstation,looking over his shoulder as these downloads are monitored real-time.

If Julian Assange had released any information that was not thoroughly veted,he would have been suicided but quick.

Of course i could be mistaken,as that has happened once before. Another question is;What damage has the WL done?
Have the leaks caused any military/politician to be charged/imprisioned? If yes,than that would lend great weight to the legitimacy. IMHO

How about the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and all the other unrest in the US government's Mideast client states?

As to imprisoning the bastards, that usually doesn't happen. Why? Because the law does not apply to the ruling class. Only in rare circumstances (e.g. invasion of Germany and subsequent Nuremberg trials) do the rulers suffer any consequences. Note, no one paid any price for the firebombing of Dresden:http://www.rense.com/general19/flame.htm

The reason it doesn't happen is that the ruling class support each other (e.g. Idi Amin ends up in Saudi Arabia), and they accumulate huge sums from bankrupting their countries. Money buys immunity.

So it is a bit much to whack Wikipedia for this lack. But let's see what happens to Mubarak. There is always hope.

As to your comment about Manning, you have a vastly overinflated notion of the competence of people in the government and the military.

Tunisia and Egyption Revolution was caused by WL? I did not read that particular W-leak,Care to share?

When an american puppet out lives his usefulness, or no longer is conTROLLable,they take em out.(iam confident you can name a few.)Other times he knows to much or (and this is hard to say without laughing)is unsavory.TPTB topple governments for practise,and forment revolutions for fun. In central and south america it is almost a continuous thing. They practice every scenario possible,gleaning information to perfect their game.The bonus is it costs them nothing but stolen,monopoly money. Plus it reaps the benifit of that countries resources and further subjugates the local serfs.Seems like with every revolution the chains get tighter. They have a slogan for this also, Order out of Chaos.

Apparently we need to get over to Egypt ,mach schnell, and protect american interests.....

Their is only one law for two types,For those it fails to protect,and For those it fails to restrain. I agree with you about the ruling class never held accountable,but you did not have to go back half a century to make that point.Frinstance the Bush torture memos.Torture is a crime against God,a crime against humanity,against the constitution,and against statutes.Even military men/women were jailed, but the administration is insulated.Plus no heads rolled for the 911 insider job.

Wait, i had an overinflated idea of the competence of people in the government and the military.You are right, 911 was done by a goat-herder hiding in a cave in
A-stan. (and we can trust a Pfc with super sensitive files,that can be downloaded on his lady gaga cd. Is that not the story?)

As to Lady Gaga CD's, I'm not an expert on music CD's but one can certainly put an ISO on a CD without closing it for further writing. Puppy Linux even has an option where you can run it from CD and subsequently store further sessions on the same CD:http://puppylinux.com/multi-puppy.htm

Well, maybe a peak behind the curtain to reveal the humbug pulling the levers is in order.........

"So you see, my dear Conningsby, the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes" . . . "Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand" (Benjamin Disraeli).

Contrary to popular belief, the world's finances are controlled by privately-owned 'central banks' masquerading as federal government banks in nearly every country in the world. . . Islamic banks have been eating into Rothschild profits in the Middle East because they don't charge interest (Shariah Law), they are growing very rapidly among the world's exploding Muslim populations, and (in these catastrophic economic times) they are more stable than western banks. . .

These Rothschild revolutions (american inclusive)are done under the pretense of bringing democracy and deposing despots, but the real aim is to initially create chaos and a leadership vacuum, then quickly offer a solution: install a puppet that will do the economic bidding of the Rothschilds. The citizens gain freedom of speech and association, but become economic serfs. http://www.puppet99.com/?p=1

These revolutions are coordinated at the highest levels by the Rothschild's International Crisis Group. Mohamed ElBaradei . . . is a trustee of the International Crisis Group. Another board member of this group is Zbigniew Brzezinski. George Soros sits on the executive committee. The later two are ubiquitous front men for the Rothschilds.

The revolutions are from the same playbook as the fairly nonviolent 'color revolutions'. . . Liberal billionaire George Soros funded training of activists in North Africa. Revolutions always take huge amounts of money.........so much so ,that gubbermints and billionaires are the only ones with enough purse to finance them.

The masters of the world, the 'City of London' and its tavistoc institute which devised the mass civilian bombing raids carried out over Dresden by Roosevelt and Churchill as a clinical experiment in mass terror, under "controlled laboratory conditions" to break down the psychological strength of the individual and render him helpless to oppose the dictators of the World Order.

Soros (i.e. Rothschild/Vatican/MI6/CIA/City of London) colour revolutions draw instant sympathy, generated for the protesters by our alien-controlled media.
Next, Saudi Arabia and Iran, then UP goes the price of oil . . . as planned . . . according to Brother Lindsy Willams.(DVD-The only one to pridict oil to go below >$50 a barrel,when it was <$180 a barrel.) He explains the US cannot produce its own oil because they are under a contract negotiated by the City's Sir Henry Kissinger to purchase Saudi oil, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is contracted to purchase US Treasury bills until the price of oil reaches US$200/barrel. This has enabled Rothschild's Federal Reserve to monetize and export debt/inflation with a lien over the wealth of individuals and the nation. A similar agreement was made with China which accepted US Treasury Bills in payment for her exports to the United States. This also benefited the large US corporations which shifted production to China and exported their product back to the US, creating unemployment and bankrupting corporations that continued to manufacture in the States.

'The City' plans to collapse the US$dollar$ by the end of 2012, double-crossing the Saudis by vaporizing the worth of US T-Bills held by OPEC countries. This will bankrupt the Arabs, Japanese and Chinese, because America's T-Bills are funding trillions of dollars of worthless derivatives. The MoneyPower has privatized hard assets and profits, both public and private, or moved them offshore, then socialized the loss, as in the ongoing "quantitative easing" scam. Do you see why they have encouraged nations to run budget deficits, introduced privatization and public-private partnerships in essential utilities and hard assetsroads, sea and airports, minerals, timber, water, etc., in exchange for keystroke fiat money? Preplanned hyperinflation will destroy the value of the US dollar, raising the price of crude oil.